MADness #89: HGTV vs Real Life!

It’s another MAD Monday, and we are one step closer to the end of this seemingly endless look back at my work for MAD Magazine. This week we get away from the world of movie and TV parodies and have a peek at a feature article called “Home Renovations: HGTV vs. Real Life”, written by the marvelously talented Teresa Burns Parkhurst and appearing in MAD #536, Dec 2015.

Most people who are familiar with my work in MAD think first of the movie and TV parodies, and would assume the majority of the work I did for the magazine were those kinds of “continuity” spoofs. That’s true, but they might be surprised how close it is. I have done 47 movie parodies and 43 TV show parodies in MAD, for a total of 90 “continuity” parodies. I have done 75 other types of features. So, stuff like this isn’t really rare for me.

This was the only feature I ever drew for MAD that was written by Teresa. Of course she wrote AND drew the vast majority of the work she did for MAD. There were only a handful of pieces where did she just did the writing, and I was lucky to get assigned one. I have always loved her work and it was a pleasure to get to share a byline with her.

One thing I will never understand was MAD‘s strange fascination with HGTV and these home improvement shows. A few years earlier I did the art for spoofs of “Trading Spaces” and “Extreme Home Makeover”, and a few issues after this piece I’d do the art for a spoof of “Fixer Upper”. I guess that’s not a lot of spoofs of those types of shows over a 15 year span, but I seem to recall a few other features centered on home improvement shows with art by other artists. I doubt many MAD readers were familiar with these shows. Go figure.

That’s it for another irreparable look back at the dilapidated, bug-infested, and condemned wrecks that were my work for MAD! Toon in next week with a look at my contribution to MAD’s list of the 20 Dumbest People, Events, and Things of 2015!